h all desire?" Those who
thought with Pitt in 1783 urged that to increase the facilities of the
islands, by abundant supplies from the nearest and best source, in
America, would so multiply the material of commerce as most to promote
the necessary navigation. The West India planters pressed this view
with forcible logic. "Navigation and naval power are not the parents
of commerce, but its happy fruits. If mutual wants did not furnish the
subject of intercourse between distant countries, there would soon be
an end of navigation. The carrying trade is of great importance, but
it is of greater still to have trade to carry." To this the reply
substantially was that if the trade were thrown open to Americans, by
allowing them to carry in their own vessels, the impetus so given to
their navigation, with the cheapness of their ships, owing to the
cheapness of materials, would make them carriers to the whole world,
breaking up the monopoly of British merchants, and supplanting the
employment of British ships.

A few statesmen, more far seeing and deeper reasoning,--notably Edmund
Burke,--came to Pitt's support, and the West India proprietors,
largely resident in England, by their knowledge of details contributed
much to elucidate the facts; but their efforts were unavailing. Their
argument ran thus: "Only the American continent can furnish at
reasonable rates the animals required for the agriculture of the
islands, the food for the slaves, the lumber for buildings and for
packing produce. Only the continent will take the rum which Europe
refuses, and with which the planter pays his running expenses. Owing
to irreversible currents of trade, neither British nor island shipping
can carry this traffic at a profit to themselves, except by ruinously
overcharging the planter. Americans only can do it. Concede the
exchange by this means, and the development of sugar and coffee
raising, owing to their bulk as freight, will enlarge British shipping
to Europe by an amount much beyond that lost in the local transport.
Of the European carriage you will retain a monopoly, as you will of
the produce, which goes into your storehouses alone; whence you reap
the advantage of brokerage and incidental handling, at the expense of
the continental consumer, while your home navigation is enlarged by
its export. Refuse this privilege, and your islands sink under French
and Spanish competition. French Santo Domingo, especially, exceeds by
far all your